Reframing Our Cultural Conversation

In a culture saturated with “Stop Hate, Choose Love” — noble-sounding platitudes, for sure—we genuinely miss the core, more challenging, even divine truth. The true opposite of love is not hate, but use—treating people as objects for our own gain. Pope St. John Paul II, in his personalistic vision undergirding his scriptural reflections in Theology of the Body, taught that love wills the good of the other as a gift, whereas use exploits, reducing the human person to a means to our own selfish ends. Imagine billboards, commercials, & football end zones proclaiming, “Stop Use, Choose Love,” or yard signs reading “Use Has No Home Here.” This shift could transform shallow rhetoric into a radical call for authentic relationships, demanding changes in our everyday motivations & interactions while advancing a profound cultural reckoning.

Love as Gift, Not Use

Pope St. John Paul II rooted this understanding of love versus use in Scripture & philosophy. Love rejoices & expresses wonder at the person’s dignity, as echoed in Genesis, “…which led Adam on the morning of creation to exclaim before Eve: ‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh (Gen 2:23).'” Yet a new Manichaeanism severs body from spirit, treating bodies as “raw material” for consumption “…for example in experimentation on embryos and fetuses—we will inevitably arrive at a dreadful ethical defeat.” If an individual is exclusively concerned with ‘use,'” he warned, “he can reach the point of killing love by killing the fruit of love. For the culture of use, the ‘blessed fruit of your womb’ (Lk 1:42) becomes in a certain sense an ‘accursed fruit'” (Pope John Paul II, Gratissimam Sane: Letter to Families, 1994, 19 & 21).

To the contrary, there is a rightful place for hatred. St. Augustine, in his Letter 211 (c. 424), wrote, “With love for mankind and hatred of sins.” We can hate sin, but not sinners—loving God’s pinnacle of creation—the human person—while rejecting disordered ideas & wrongful actions stemming from our fallen condition. Sinners are beloved sons or daughters of God, deserving of love, while sin itself harms one’s soul & relationship with God, oneself & others. Christ commands in the Beatitudes, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Mt 5:44), distinguishing between error & the person, urging forgiveness of injuries while extending love to all people. This fulfills the New Covenant, transcending the current cultural “ideal” of mere tolerance.

Reshaping the Cultural Conversation

By approaching others with authentic love, curiosity & wonder, we better understand their perspective, opening the door to fruitful discussion. This goodwill does not dilute our commitment to truth & goodness; rather, love impels us to share the saving truth of Jesus, for love rejoices in the truth (1 Cor 13:6). While we can observe right & wrong behavior, we cannot know a person’s interiority regarding that behavior. “God alone is the judge and searcher of hearts, for that reason He forbids us to make judgments about the internal guilt of anyone” (Vatican Council II, Gaudium et Spes, 1965, 28). In polarized times, this perspective shift counters “cancel culture” by rejecting personal condemnation, while firmly opposing falsehoods—such as many of today’s prevailing ideologies that ultimately reduce human persons to objects to be used.

“Stop Hate” rallies evoke emotion but evade agency & accountability. “Stop Use” demands examination: Does my relationship objectify? Does the media commodify bodies? In politics, we “use” opponents as punchlines & punching bags; in families, children as commodities & achievements; & on social media, friends for likes & attention. This newly reworded motto pierces personal habits: use lurks in consent/hook-up culture (“mutual use” lacking morality), porn consumption, greedy consumerism & prideful praise/notoriety-seeking.

Substituting use for the word hate invites discussion of Christian anthropology—respecting the whole body-soul unit, as created in God’s divine image & likeness. Schools can teach the unity of the body & soul, absolute moral truths over relativism, as well as prudence & modesty on social media rather than chasing popularity & likes. Perpetuating comparisons & envy fuel use while encouraging an authentic gift-of-self (taught in the Theology of the Body) promotes love.

A Call to Personalism

Personalism holds that each human being is created by God to possess rationality, moral responsibility, relationality & dignity: persons exist in relationships & are ends in themselves, not a means to any social or utilitarian goals (Catholic.com). Replace trite banners with truth. Pope St. John Paul II’s vision—love as non-use—elevates discourse from reactive outrage to proactive human dignity. Choose love: see persons, not utilities. In homes, workplaces, & on the streets: “Use Has No Home Here.” Relationships thrive & culture heals when we seek to gift of ourselves rather than grasp for ourselves.

Written by, Evie Estes,

Curriculum Production Manager,
Editor, Sales & Website Support

Artwork: Adam and Eve in Paradise. Jan Ladislaw Sýkora. 1899.